Exposition

Only the Envelope: artistic interpretations of eye-tracking imagery (2018)

Vahri McKenzie, Neil K Ferguson
open exposition

About this exposition

Only the Envelope (OTE) combines several research methodologies to investigate the ways we share personal information in the public sphere. This exposition presents video and video stills as primary artefacts in a discussion about a live artwork that dramatises the act of looking. In a live art installation, a ‘scientist’ invited visitors to be involved in an ‘experiment’ — namely, viewing a film while wearing a wireless eye-tracking device. This surveillance technology generated data about viewing behaviour. However, of greater interest was investigating how engaging with OTE as creative arts research led to unanticipated findings. Also interesting were the new audiovisual documents created through a re-enactment of the visitor’s experience, in which the eye-tracking device was redeployed as a head-mounted camera. In the artistic research context of OTE, the re-enacted videos led to new data being collected and analysed, leading to novel insights. These show that OTE’s ironic performance of science, employing the coercive power of complex technologies, maintained rather than undermined the compliant behaviour of participants. At the same time, the artist’s re-enactment of the visitor’s experience makes it possible to imagine, represent, and discuss such an act of subversion by illuminating the complexity of viewing behaviour when considered within the politics of the gaze and representation. This complexity is a reflection both of the emergent nature of a process-driven creative arts research enquiry, and of the work’s investigation of data retention.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsData retention, surveillance, eye-tracking, the gaze, performance of science, re-enactment art
date01/01/2018
published11/04/2018
last modified11/04/2018
statuspublished
share statusprivate
affiliationEdith Cowan University
licenseAll rights reserved
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/332658/332659
doihttps://doi.org/10.22501/jar.332658
published inJournal for Artistic Research
portal issue15.


Simple Media

id name copyright license
346721 private-info OTE All rights reserved
346720 putting-on-gloves OTE All rights reserved
345843 end-clip4 OTE All rights reserved
345815 recreation OTE All rights reserved
344178 heatmap-1 OTE All rights reserved
338933 analysis-process-2 OTE All rights reserved
338931 analysis-process-1 OTE All rights reserved
338469 svetlana-gazeplot OTE All rights reserved
338468 svetlana-heatmap - copy OTE All rights reserved
338466 svetlana-heatmap OTE All rights reserved
338463 Svetlana OTE All rights reserved
338461 eyes-and-nose OTE All rights reserved
338420 intro clip4 OTE All rights reserved
336937 dark reflection 3 - adjusted OTE All rights reserved
332668 dark reflection 3 OTE All rights reserved
332663 dark reflection 1 OTE All rights reserved
421737 making2 OTE All rights reserved
421783 re-enactment3 OTE All rights reserved
421785 multigrid OTE All rights reserved
421787 heatmap-2 OTE All rights reserved
422285 scribble2 OTE All rights reserved
422291 heatmap-std OTE All rights reserved
422293 heatmap-non-std OTE All rights reserved
422295 gazeplot-non-std OTE All rights reserved
422297 scribble-end OTE All rights reserved
422299 heatmap-non-std2 OTE All rights reserved
422908 scribble6 OTE All rights reserved

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